I'm really sorry for the wait, guys. I've really tried to go as fast as possible, but I'm very busy😥🙏. I hope you like the final result 😊.
All characters depicted in situations are 18 years of age or older and of the age of consent, even if it looks otherwise. Acts depicted are all consensual. No real or fictional person was harmed in the making of this work.
It was an unusually quiet afternoon at the Special Fire Force Company 8 headquarters. With no Infernals in sight, Maki Oze was sitting in the women's locker room, flipping through a fashion and romance magazine. She sighed deeply as she looked at her own incredibly toned arms. No matter how hard she tried to act delicate, the guys always ended up calling her a "Gorilla Cyclops" or treating her like just another soldier.
Determined to change that, she summoned Sister Iris and Tamaki Kotatsu for an emergency meeting in front of the large vanity mirror.
"Girls, I need your help, it's an emergency," Maki pleaded, clasping her hands together with pleading eyes. "I want to look more... feminine. More delicate. Like the heroine in one of these magazines. My dark, straight hair always looks too strict. I need a princess aura so they stop seeing me as a muscular ogre!"
"No one thinks you're an ogre, Maki!" Iris comforted her with her usual angelic sweetness.
"Leave it to me!" Tamaki exclaimed, thrilled by the idea of a beauty session. She quickly brought out a huge hairdressing kit. "You have beautiful, strong hair. Before we move on to heat tools, we could try tying it up. There are so many options: we could do French braids, an elegant high bun, high pigtails, a half-updo with ribbons, twintails, etc. All of that would give you a very cute touch."
"Hmm... I want something that screams 'pure romance'," Maki said dreamily.
"Then the answer is heat," Tamaki declared, plugging in a thick-barreled curling iron. "We'll give you loose, voluminous, cascading curls. You'll look like true royalty!"
Iris helped brush Maki's hair to remove any tangles while Tamaki waited for the curling iron to heat up. When she started working, carefully rolling the strands, the atmosphere relaxed. The three girls began talking about the guys in the company, ideal dates, and movie romances. Maki closed her eyes, completely losing herself in a fantasy where a handsome knight rescued her and called her "his fragile, beautiful flower."
They were so immersed in chatting about what dress Maki would wear on that hypothetical date that none of them realized how long Tamaki had been holding the curling iron tightly clamped against the crown of Maki's head.
A sudden, acrid smell of smoke flooded the bathroom, followed by a worrying sizzle.
"Tamaki, does it smell a little like... burning?" Iris asked, blinking.
"Oh, my God!" Tamaki screamed, snapping out of her daydream.
She yanked the curling iron away in a panic. The problem was that the hair didn't unroll. Instead, a huge, charred chunk detached from the root, falling to the floor and leaving a small cloud of gray smoke in the air.
Maki opened her eyes, looked in the mirror, and let out a high-pitched scream that nearly shattered the glass. Right in the center of her head, on the crown, was a completely bald, circular patch with singed edges.
"My maiden hair!" Maki cried, grabbing her cheeks. "Now I really do look like a monster!"
"Don't panic, don't panic!" Tamaki sweated cold, grabbing scissors and clippers. "I'm a professional, I can fix this! Let's cover it up. I'll give you a very trendy style, an inverted bob with a shaved nape. It's edgy but stylish."
Without giving her time to protest, Tamaki turned on the clippers and ran them up the back of Maki's neck, eliminating the long back section, then cut the sides diagonally with the scissors. The cut itself wasn't bad, but there was one glaring problem: the bob left the burnt patch on her crown completely exposed, making it shine under the fluorescent lights.
"It's even more noticeable now..." Iris said, worried. "Let me try to level the top layer so it falls over the gap."
Iris took the scissors with the best of intentions, but the Sister of the Holy Church knew absolutely nothing about hairdressing. She cut the bangs in a straight line and chopped off the sides with zero technique. When she finished, Maki looked like she was wearing a helmet. She had been left with a ridiculous, childish bowl cut.
Maki looked at herself, trembling. "I look like... a preschooler... or a mushroom..."
"Wait, wait! The bowl cut isn't working, but we can make it a modern, messy pixie cut!" Tamaki insisted, desperate to save the situation.
She picked up the clippers again, sculpting the sides and leaving short strands on top. But her hands were shaking from nerves. The pixie turned out asymmetrical, full of choppy patches, and to make matters worse, the lack of volume only made the burnt hole look even bigger.
The silence in the bathroom was deadly. All three girls stared at the reflection of a devastated Maki, her hair ruined in a thousand different ways. There was no way to hide the disaster anymore.
"Maki..." Tamaki murmured, tears in her eyes, holding the clippers without a guard attached. "There's only one option left. We have to hit reset."
Maki sobbed and nodded, surrendering to her fate. She squeezed her eyes shut as the buzz of the clippers sounded again, this time passing mercilessly over her forehead, her temples, and her crown. The little hair she had left fell in messy clumps onto her shoulders. In a couple of minutes, the deed was done.
The fierce fire warrior of Company 8 was completely shaved bald.
The buzzing stopped. Maki opened her eyes and ran a trembling hand over her bare skull. It was smooth and completely bare. It was the absolute antithesis of the delicate romantic princess she wanted to be. She sighed, preparing to burst into tears again, when suddenly the unmistakable creak of the door opening echoed through the room.
Lieutenant Hinawa, wearing his usual cap and his unflappable expression, walked into the bathroom holding a folder. "Oze, Captain Obi needs you to check the inventory for—"
Hinawa stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes fixed on Maki's shiny, hairless head, then on the mounds of hair scattered across the floor, and finally on Tamaki and Iris, who were holding the cutting tools like murder weapons.
Maki shrank into her chair, red as a tomato. 'Here it comes,' she thought, terrified. 'He's going to call me a bald recruit. He's going to say that now I finally look like the hairless Gorilla Cyclops I truly am...'
Hinawa adjusted his glasses with one finger. The silence was unbearable. Finally, with his robotic, monotone, and completely serious voice, the Lieutenant spoke:
"That style completely clears your face. It prevents enemy fire or sparks from clinging to you, and it won't obstruct your vision in close-quarters combat. It's a highly tactical choice... and you look cute, Oze. Good work."
Without adding another word, Hinawa turned around and walked out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Maki froze, processing the information. Had he called it tactical? Yes. Had he called her cute? YES! Suddenly, Maki's face erupted into a blush so intense that steam literally began to rise from the top of her freshly shaved head. She brought her hands to her cheeks and let out a high-pitched squeal, completely in love and happy, instantly forgetting that Tamaki and Iris had just ruined her hair.